


Heal What Has Been Hurt, Change The Fates Design

by iamtheoneinthehole



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Healer!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:38:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1417066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamtheoneinthehole/pseuds/iamtheoneinthehole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted anonymously; OT6 please! Where Gavin has the powers to heal a person or make them feel better by talking to them and focusing only on them. The catch is though it drains some of the life out of him and he over uses it so much that he could likely die. He doesn't tell his boyfriends until he has no choice but to heal one of them which drains most of his energy, ever since then he avoids trying to use it much after the worry from his boys. He can't help it though and continued to do it. The rest is up to you.</p>
<p>Ever since he could remember, Gavin Free had always been ‘gifted’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heal What Has Been Hurt, Change The Fates Design

**Author's Note:**

> And here we have my longest fic to date... yeah this prompt definitely took on a life of its own. It was a lot of fun to write though- hope you like what I've done with it anon :)

Ever since he could remember, Gavin Free had always been ‘gifted’.

It’d been something he’d discovered pretty early on in life, back during the days of roundabouts, fingerpaints and swings when he’d been playing with Dan and the boy had suddenly lost his grip on the monkey bars, slipping and landing on his arm with an almost sickening crunch … and it’d upset the Brit a lot to see his friend in pain, so much so that he hadn’t been willing to leave Dan’s side to get a teacher, even though he knew that was what he was supposed to do. But Dan was hurting and he wanted to help his friend in whatever little ways he could.

So he’d sat by his side with his friend as the two of them waited for a teacher to realise what had happened, running a hand gently through B’s hair in the way his mother did sometimes when he’d scraped up his knees to soothe him, whispering to him about how everything was gonna be okay and hey, at least Dan would end up with one of those bloody top looking casts like one of the other kids in their class had after they’d had a skiing accident. And as he’d talked, his best friend’s face had begun to look a little less pained, less pale, to the point that Gavin had just ended up babbling random words to him since he seemed to be doing _something_ right…

And then he’d felt it, a phantom pain shooting up his arm, causing him to let out a surprised yelp as he’d snatched his hand away from B’s head until the pained spasms subsided. And afterwards, when he’d turned his focus back to Dan, his best friend was staring at him with a wide-eyed expression that bordered on awe as he carefully shifted the arm that’d given off the sickening crack before and… nothing. Because when the pain coursing through Gavin had vanished, so had the break in Dan’s arm.

They’d both been convinced, after that, that it was entirely possible Gavin had some kind of super powers which, naturally, they’d decided to put to the test with little things at first, a papercut or a bruised knee, before slowly graduating to the point where Dan had deliberately slipped from the climbing frame again just to see if Gavin could fix him. And, as it turned out, he could.

And so they’d started wandering around the playground to tell the other kids about his powers, doing demonstrations when the kids didn’t initially believe him as he’d gone around healing any paper cuts or bruises or scraped knees. The one thing they’d discovered Gavin couldn’t heal though was his own injuries, even though he’d tried really hard a couple of times with the bruises littered across his legs from his adventures with Dan. By the end of the day, he’d been the coolest kid on the whole playground, and even though none of the teachers would believe him when he explained why, Gavin didn’t care because what did adults know about that kind of stuff anyway?

The only problem was that the pain he felt when he’d first healed Dan hadn’t stopped happening whenever he healed the others… in fact if anything, it’d gotten worse as he started to feel a low, dull ache in his fingertips that didn’t ever seem to go away and, after a while, his head even started to feel a little fuzzy, faint even after he’d healed a particularly large scrape (from Dan again who Gavin was half convinced had done it deliberately, just to watch the skin knit its way back together again once his friend used his powers on it). He’d liked the attention and the little rush he got out of helping people though so he’d kept going until the end of the school day, ending up being a little wobbly on his feets as he’d stumbled his way over to where his mother was waiting for him.

He’d only just about made it into her arms before he’d actually collapsed…

A few hours later he’d woken up in a hospital bed, a scenario that would become a fairly common occurrence throughout his future life but had actually been a first at the time; a group of bewildered doctors standing around him, with varied expressions of relief as he blinked himself awake, and his mother in the corner, her face pale and lips pulled into a concerned frown as she’d asked them all to leave her alone with her son. And so the doctors had cleared out, still looking somewhat bewildered as they did and one of them kept casting glances back at Gavin, like he couldn’t quite puzzle him out.

He wondered if this was about his super powers and had asked him mum as she’d taken a seat at his bedside, clasping his hand lightly as a strange sort of sadness had entered her gaze.

It’d been then that she’d explained to him about his gift.

Apparently he was a healer. It’d been an ability that had run in their family for generations now, as long as they could remember, though no one could be quite sure who’d actually been the original source of it. And, apparently, her sister had possessed too, and his grandmother before her. It was a rare gift, she admitted, and it mostly seemed to stay within the Free line but it was a gift all the same. And she wanted him to know that because… once Gavin got older, those kids he’d shown his powers to today might not see it in quite the same way.

She’d then made him promise to keep his abilities a secret from all but those he absolutely knew he could trust. Like her, like dad, like Dan and perhaps like a special someone he’d meet one day but until then… he had to keep it secret, keep it safe. Because there were mean people in this world, she warned him, who’d want to use his powers for evil… And so he’d promised he wouldn’t say anything and something in his mother’s posture had seemed to relax a little bit at that as she’d offered him a grateful smile.

She’d then gone on to repeat that Gavin was special and that she’d always be special to him, but Gavin had already known that because both of his parents had always told him that… it was just that now he was starting to see why that was. Because his family was special too. They’d possessed the ability to heal those around them for as long as Free records remembered and had, apparently, saved countless lives with that gift. She made a point of emphasizing how lucky Gavin was very lucky to have inherited it…but something in her tone spoke of the fact that she might not entirely mean that.

Because, as he’d discovered when he was a little bit older and more able to deal with these things, it was also a curse. Every time someone used their gift, that power would take a huge toll on its wielder. The health he provided others with had to come from somewhere after all, and the healing he’d performed for awed classmates in his youth had all come from him. He’d been giving up his own health, and whittling away a little at his life expectancy in the process, for their amusement’s sake sake; replacing it with their pain, their suffering...

And if he ended up doing it too much? His mother had refused to say anything on that subject for a very long time, except the fact that the consequences would be _very_ _bad_ at the time. She hadn’t wanted to scar Gavin’s young, innocent mind with fears far too great and visceral for one so small but… as he’d grown up, he’d figured out for himself what she hadn’t been willing to tell him. Because both his grandma and aunt had died pretty young and in unusual circumstances and… well, it hadn’t taken a genius to figure out what those ‘circumstances’ might be...

They’d overused their powers and, as a result of helping too many, healing too much... and it’d killed them.

Honestly, it’d been a slightly sobering revelation, though the knowledge didn’t necessarily result in Gavin experiencing a sudden desire not to use his abilities anytime soon. Because they truly were a gift, and not one that many had actually gotten the chance to experience and, honestly, it’d be more than a little selfish to keep his abilities to himself considering that… he did use them less frequently though after he’d figured that part out. Stopped showing off on the playground, stopped having to be sent home early because he’d passed out in class or full on collapsed… and his mother had looked more than a little relieved when she’d realized that this was the case.

But sometimes he just _had_ to help people, because he just couldn’t really stomach the idea of knowing someone he cared for was suffering, especially when he possessed the ability to put a non-violent end to it… There’d only really been one time that he hadn’t been allowed to resort to that method, had been all but forbidden from using it to be honest, when his mother had wound up on her death bed, far too young and far too soon, and had made the Brit swear that he wouldn’t try to heal her, even a little bit... Because it’d been his grandmother saving her husband that’d killed her and his mother couldn’t live with the death of her own son on her conscience.

And so he’d been forced to bite his tongue, bite back the soothing, healing words that desperately wished to spew forth from his lips as he’d held her hand and tried not to cry until the breath had left her lungs…

A week after she’d passed away, he’d graduated school with Dan. A week after that, he was forced to say another tearful (though thankfully less permanent) farewell to the man he still called and considered his best friend as Dan had headed off to start his work in the armed forces. And before he was gone, he’d made sure to make Gavin promise him the same thing his mother always had; don’t overuse your abilities. Gavin was pretty sure his friend might even have tried to make him promise not to use them at all in his absence if he’d have thought Gavin would listen to him. But he wouldn’t and they both knew that so Dan had settled for the next best thing, and Gavin had promised the man he’d try. A long warm hug and a few dozen promises to keep in touch later and Dan had been gone.

Three weeks later he’d started really putting his all into his work with slow mo cameras in order to take his mind off things, distracting himself from his recent loss and the sudden;y immense distance between him and Dan with fancy camera lenses and filters and dumb experiments he’d send to the other man in the hopes of perking him up a little as he fought on the front lines.

A year on from that and he’d, somehow, managed to establish himself as a professional in the slow motion industry, even managing to land himself rolls in the crew for few higher profile movies that Dan would always get jealous over when he told his best friend about them. The job wasn’t nearly so as exciting as he’d once imagined it’d be though. Because sure, _occasionally_ he’d get to work on big projects but, most of the time, it was dark rooms with indie directors who just so happened to more than a little eccentric, with just a dash of pretentious knob, when it came to their methods and the Brit had found himself desperately longing for the more laid back days of slow mo in his youth, mucking about it his garden with a camera and Dan instead.

So he’d found other ways to cope with the fact that life hadn’t turned out quite the way he’d planned it to, finding distractions in video games, in random acts of kindness where he’d try and heal some sort of wound that a friend or acquaintance was suffering from without them realizing and, perhaps most importantly, in a little online web series called Red vs Blue.

And somehow, six months down the line after he’d first found the show, he’d wound up managing to stumble his way into a game of halo with one of the company who made it’s staff; a badass woman by the name of Griffon who just so happened to be able to seriously kick ass when it came to Halo 2 (though he supposed that’d make sense considering who it was she worked for). Over the next few months they’d end up having countless more gaming sessions together after Griffon had seemed to take a liking to him for some reason, even telling him little bits and pieces of ‘behind the scenes’ trivia about the people who voiced the characters in the series and what working for a company like Roosterteeth was actually like.

Gavin had soaked in every detail like a sponge, clinging to the little snippets Griffon would give him of her better, and easily more fulfilled, existence to help him through each day of his own, bloody disappointing one.

Eventually Griff had wanted to meet him face to face, enticing him over with the promise to sneak him into the Roosterteeth building while he was visiting and… well how could Gavin have ever really said no to that? So after a few more projects, and a lot of saving up, he’d hoped onto the first plane to Austin he could catch, Griffon meeting him at the airport with a huge grin on her face and a man stood next to her, who Gavin assumed was her boyfriend, that kept shooting him assessing and vaguely suspicious looks as they’d grabbed his stuff and taken it out to the cab that was waiting for them.

Gavin couldn’t exactly blame the man for that though, after all he was a complete stranger to the guy and, for all he knew, the Brit was some sort of weird creep that wanted to hurt Griffon somehow. So he’d done his best to seem non-threatening as they’d journeyed back to hers and begun to unload his stuff in her guest room where he’d be staying.

And, eventually, Griffon had seemed to realize the looks the man was giving him, rolling her eyes and giving the tattooed man a (seemingly painful) nudge to the ribs, “Geoff cool it, he’s harmless. Or if he is a danger its more to himself than anyone else.”

“Hey!” But there was a grin on Gavin’s lips as he said it that gave him away, even as he faked a pout as the woman recalled the amount of times he’d managed to mess things up when they played Halo or anything really, Gavin chiming in with the defence that video games weren’t exactly a reflection on how he was in real life, even as he secretly mused that she probably wasn’t actually too far off on the ‘danger to himself’ thing given how he’d nearly tripped up the aisle down the centre of the plane he’d caught earlier… but neither of them had to know that.

But then the man had cut it with, “No but you half tripping over your own case when you first spotted Griffon might be,” _And it was bloody Grif’s voice! Dexter Grif, a.k.a. Gavin’s favourite character in the whole damn series and here his voice actor was talking about him tripping over a bloody suitcase and yeah, great first impression there Gav._

He’d only become aware of the fact that he’d been silently gawping a little at the man when his sudden amused chuckle startled him from his thoughts as he conceded to Griffon that, “Okay, maybe he is kinda harmless.” And then he was reaching out his hand to shake Gavin’s and introducing himself as Geoff Ramsey and by that point he’d just about managed to recover enough from being so initially start struck to offer an introduction of his own and shake it… and he may have held that hand for just a little too long but, based on the slight smile that’d turned up the corner of the man’s lips as they both realized this, and the way he’d squeezed his hand slightly before letting it go, he really didn’t seem to mind all that much.

They’d ended up spending most of the rest of that day talking about what it was like back where Gavin was from, both of them seemingly fascinated by the answers he gave, especially Geoff who’d seemed to quickly jump from suspicious of his every move to… something else that Gavin didn’t dare to think, at first, might be slightly flirtatious… but then Griffon had started shooting the pair of them knowing looks and Gavin had been forced to reassess that initial opinion of his a little as he’d continued to talk about where he’d grown up, and Dan and the slow mo work he did, pointedly leaving out anything that might hint towards certain abilities that, to this day, only he, his parents and Dan had ever known about.

And eventually Geoff had ended up staying long enough that Griffon had managed to twist his arm into cooking them dinner (since if he was going to eat her food, he was going to have to earn it somehow), once again reminding Gavin of the reason he’d initially thought the pair to be dating given how easily Geoff had seemed to bow to her requests, moving into the kitchen area to get the food started as Griffon herself had moved to load up the xbox so that she and Gavin could play a few games on it while they waited.

But at the same time there’d been those knowing looks and Gavin was almost entirely convinced the older man had been flirting with him at this point and he was definitely getting some seriously mixed signals here… and since Gavin wasn’t exactly one to beat around the issue, he’d eventually gone ahead and blurted out ‘Are you and Geoff dating’ in the middle of a round of Halo… which in turn had sent Griffon into a fit of laughter so strong that she hadn’t even noticed that her character was being brutally murdered until it was a few seconds too late. And even then, she hadn’t seemed to care too much, setting her controller down on the couch next to her as she’d eventually managed to compose herself enough to give Gavin a straight answer.

“Sorry its just… Geoff’s honestly like a brother to me by this point. I mean I’ve held the guy’s hoodie away from the toilet for him after he’s had too much on a night out with the guys and Kara... I’m pretty sure if there ever were any vague chances of romance between us, they died that night in putrid and painfully graphic detail…” She faked a shudder at that, making Gavin’s lips quirk a little in amusement as she continued, “...I get why you thought it though I mean you’re not the first to ask that. And I know we seem kind of close but… its a platonic sort of closeness, like bromance, like family... And it’s not that Geoff’s not a good person for that kind of stuff, it’s not that at all… he’s just not the person for me, and vice versa really.”

“If you get asked it a lot, why did you laugh so hard when I-”

And suddenly the amused grin was back on Griffon’s features in full force as she’d cut in, “Because that poor man’s been trying to pull the moves on you all day now and it’s kind of hilarious to see that he’s been missing his mark _that_ much that you thought we were dating. I mean this is _definitely_ a new all time low for him.”

“You’re going to tease him mercilessly about this aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. What are, practically adoptive by this point, sisters for other than to torture their brothers over the failed love conquests.”

“Well… it might not have failed _exactly.._.” He’d half murmured, mindful of the fact that Geoff may well be listening in from the kitchen since he wasn’t entirely sure how well sound carried in Griffon’s flat and the last thing he wanted to do was make an admission like that when he still wasn’t entirely sure, despite Griffon’s reassurances, how well it’d be received.

“So you’d be open to it if he asked you out tomorrow night after I’ve shown you around the office then, hypothetically speaking of course.” There was a slight calculating glint in her gaze and, for a moment, Gavin wasn’t entirely sure how to answer her question since he got the definite sense that this wasn’t quite so ‘hypothetical’ as the woman was making out… eventually though, he’d decided to go with being honest about things.

“Yeah I guess so, but-”

“Hey Geoff! You owe me twenty bucks and Mr Free here a date.” And Gavin had felt his face burning a little as the man’s head suddenly poked around the corner into the living room, though the slight grin on his lips, which seemed to grow wider and more confident when he’d realized the truth in Griffon’s words, did help somewhat with making him forget his initial embarrassment. In fact he barely even registered Griffon’s words about ‘officially’ being the ‘best wingman ever’ as the man had nodded and told Gavin something about picking him up at eight and the Brit knew damn well that he’d probably be grinning like an idiot for the rest of the night now. Honestly though, he couldn’t really find it within himself to care, especially when this was the most excited or alive he’d felt in years now, ever since Dan had left for the army and he’d found himself trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of ambiguously pretentious indie films…

Plus the fact that Geoff had turned out to be a bloody top cook helped a little with that wide grin too as he’d tucked into the man’s food, making noises that Geoff had quirked an eyebrow at in response to the flavours that burst across his taste buds, making his cheeks flush just a little redder in response. It was something that Gavin had later attributed to him still probably feeling a little starstruck and that Geoff had always teased was more due to the fact that his British boyfriend just so happened to be adorable as dicks.

Whatever the reason though, that evening had been the beginning of a new start for Gavin Free, for the better life he’d almost given up on having some day up until that point.

\----

The next day he’d gone to the Roosterteeth office, as planned, Griffon showing him around and introducing him to the others, and he’d definitely had a few more ‘starstruck’ moments when he’d met ‘Tex’ or Kathleen, a kind motherly sort of woman with a friendly smile who’d offered to let him take a peek inside their recording area, ‘Caboose’ (Joel) who’d actually done a few of Gavin’s favourite lines for him before talking with him in length about the show, seeming genuinely interested in the answers he gave about which were his favourite parts and especially ‘Church’ (Burnie) who’d seemed to take a shine to the Brit, actually joining Griffon as his tour guide as they’d showed him their machinima technology and how it all worked and, in the end, Gavin was pretty sure he’d managed to impress them a little with some of the stuff he already knew about the programmes they worked with.

One of the biggest highlights of his day, however, was getting to meeting Jack Pattillo. He was part of a fairly new idea within the company called ‘Achievement Hunter’ that he’d set up along with Geoff and the stuff they’d produced so far for it had been pretty great really. He’d spent a bit of time in the office with Jack while they waited for Geoff to finish up recording some lines, the Brit peeking over the man’s shoulder as he watched him try to get an achievement in the game he was playing. It’d been an intense struggle with a fair few cuss words from Jack but eventually the achievement tag had popped up on the man’s screen leading to a shared woop of victory from both men as Jack had then saved his progress before turning to face Gavin.

After that, the two had talked for a while about what it was like to be an ‘Achievement Hunter’ and what ideas Jack and Geoff had for this branch off from the majority of the stuff they put out there and Gavin found himself slipping into a weird sort of comfortableness with the man, almost as if he’d known him for years… and Jack had seemed to have similar feelings about the situation given the way he’d then invited Gavin to play the game he’d been playing before in co-op with him… a move the man had quickly seemed to learn was a mistake once they’d loaded up the game and Jack had actually begun to see Gavin play…

Contrary to what Dan or Griffon would tell you if you asked them, Gavin wasn’t actually a _terrible_ player at most games… the problem was that his desire to mess with the other people on his team for a few laughs usually overpowered his desire to win said game.

Which was something Jack seemed to be quickly discovering for himself as the Brit’s character ran around on screen, killing off any npcs on their team and setting off grenades in random places to the point where when Geoff had eventually returned to the Achievement Hunter office, it’d been to Jack screaming at Gavin while the Brit chuckled and just so ‘happened’ to throw another grenade in Jack’s character’s general direction…

A few moments later and the man had tackled Gavin to the floor with a loud squawk, tickling the man mercilessly as Gavin shrieked and squirmed and laughed and neither of them had actually noticed Geoff standing there for a good five minutes until Jack had finally released the Brit, the two of them sitting there in breathless laughter until Geoff had cleared his throat, making some wry sort of comment about him clearly walking in on them at the wrong moment (since Jack had straddling his hips to hold him in place before and the two were a little flushed and panting)...

And Jack’s eyes had gone almost comically wide at that, stammering out some sort of explanation though the flush hadn’t left his cheeks, nor Gavin’s and for a long moment Geoff had just stood there, levelling the pair of them with an assessing gaze before he’d turned to Jack, offering to have him tag along on their date night tonight since there seemed to be a certain chemistry between him and the Brit and apparently he’d always had a slight thing for the man’s beard himself…

And somehow, just like that, Gavin had ended up on a date that night with both the members of Achievement Hunter.

They’d ended up going to some fancy restaurant with a name Gavin couldn’t even begin to pronounce, much to the older men’s amusement when he’d tried, multiple times and so badly that he’d even made the stern looking owner of the establishment crack an amused smile at his attempts.

He hadn’t had much more luck with pronouncing the names of the dishes being served either, relying on Jack and Geoff to order for him as he sat there sheepishly chewing on one of the breadsticks on their table until the waiter had left, bringing their drinks moments later as the three of them began to talk about anything and everything, Geoff telling a few stories from his childhood that had Jack and Gavin in stiches, their sound of their laughter reaching levels dangerously close to disruptive, or at least it seemed that way based on the dirty looks the couple one table over had kept on shooting them.

And at some point both of the other men had also seemed to notice the couple, a look passing between the three of them, as they’d caught the end of the man sitting there’s complaint about how ‘some people’ just couldn’t behave in a civilized manner in public, that simply seemed to say _let’s fuck with them._

They’d started out by talking louder, all of them having to muffle laughter in any ways they could as they’d watched the couple silently fume. And then Jack’s hands had taken both Gavin’s and Geoff’s (across the table) and they’d very nearly lost it when the woman had turned pale as a sheet, seemingly only just coming to the revelation as to exactly why the three of them happened to be there in that restaurant.

And then Geoff had started with the ridiculously suggestive comments that had Gavin actually muffling suppressed laughter into Jack’s shoulder as the man offered snarky little quips of his own in response and eventually they’d actually had to take a breather because Geoff had almost been crying by that point with the effort to _not_ laugh at the situation and Jack wasn’t exactly faring much better.

It was when Gavin had caught wind of a muffled ‘fag’ from the man that he’d decided he really wanted to fuck with that couple’s heads, possibilities of getting thrown out of the restaurant be damned, and a few moments later he’d turned to capture Jack’s lips in a soft kiss, shifting a little closer to the man as he did and losing himself for a moment in the man’s embrace… and then he’d pulled back, flashing Jack a quick grin before leaning across the table to do the same to Geoff, the older man nipping his lower lip to deepen the kiss a little, a soft moan escaping the Brit’s lips in response as Geoff’s hand came to tangle in Gavin’s messy hair for a long moment before he’d finally released him, dazed and blushing a little, before Geoff had turned his attention to Jack, giving the man the same treatment…

And by this point Gavin couldn’t care less about the bloody couple. All he knew was that this was easily the hottest thing he’d ever seen and that if he didn’t get a chance to go adjust himself in the bathroom before they left, chances were everyone would get to know just how bloody hot he’d found it...

They’d eventually been booted from the restaurant, laughing loud as the hell they wanted now that there was no one to complain about it, into the crisp night air as both men’s hands found his. And Gavin was pretty sure, in that moment, that he was already halfway to falling in love with these men.

\----

The rest of the three weeks he’d stayed in Austin had been just as incredible as those first few days, Gavin spending almost all of his time with either Griffon, or Burnie (since, as it turned out, the man really _had_ taken a shine to him to the point that he’d even dropped a few subtle suggestions about the Brit maybe looking into career opportunities within their company towards the end of his visit), or the men he was quickly beginning to consider as _his_ boys.

And despite the fact that it was probably a terrible idea, given how ridiculously long distance the relationship would be, they’d agreed to give their budding relationship a chance and when Gavin had gotten on that plane back to England at the end of his time in Austin, it’d been with Griffon, Burnie and his two new long distance boyfriends waving him off.

The next few months, to say the least, had been kind of rough. Being stuck halfway across the world from the men you’d half fallen in love with already wasn’t easy, especially when one of them got hurt doing something, even if the pain there were experiencing was nothing more than a tiny pinprick, barely noticeable, because fact was if Gavin was there he’d be able to heal it for them, even if doing so wasn’t exactly the wisest of moves, and the fact that he couldn’t was really starting to get to him.

Plus the distance between them and him left plenty of room for all sorts of insecurities to creep in about ‘what if they decided the relationship worked better without him in it’ or ‘what if they found someone else to replace him’... and when the two of them had started mentioning the name ‘Ryan Haywood’ a lot during their daily skype sessions or ‘game nights’ (where they’d all play games together and pretend Gavin was there in Austin with them) he’d almost been convinced that his worst nightmares were coming true…

But then he’d gotten a job offer at Roosterteeth to work on Red vs Blue’s next upcoming season (since apparently Burnie and Geoff had both pulled a lot of strings in order to make sure Roosterteeth hired him) and the next time he’d gotten on a plane to Austin it’d been with a work visa to stay there with his boyfriends for as long as the company continued to employ him (or, alternatively, until the visa expired but he could always get it renewed if he ended up lasting that long) and the moment he’d been able to rush into their arms, burrowing into their warmth for the first time in months as they’d both murmured stuff about how much they’d missed him, leading him towards the cab that was on route for Geoff’s this time and that hopefully wouldn’t have to be called again to take him back for a long time yet. Because right now, there wasn’t anywhere else he’d wanted to be more than here in his boys’ arms.

\----

He’d ended up finally meeting Ryan in person on his third day officially working at Roosterteeth when he’d been outside the recording booth, listening to Geoff record his lines for Griff when suddenly there’d been a man stood in the doorway, waiting for the man to finish up so he could ask him something about the Game Fails channel and… _oh_.

Okay so maybe he could understand why they’d talked about this guy so much.

After all, the man was pretty obviously gorgeous and when he’d turned to offer Gavin a slight smile as he’d introduced himself, the Brit was pretty sure his heart had stuttered a little in his chest before he’d actually been able to respond to the man… Plus he’d actually turned out to be a pretty decent guy once Gavin had started to talk to him. He was friendly enough, obviously intelligent and had a dark, slightly macabre sense of humor that would pop up in their conversation at the most unexpected points that would have the Brit bursting into laughter moments later and he realized he’d been completely wrong before to resent the man for catching Jack and Geoff’s attention because how could you _not_ be drawn in, at least a little bit, by a man like him?

And obviously something of that must’ve shown in the Brit’s face because later on, when he was back at Geoff’s and he, Gavin and Jack were having a quiet night in, he’d brought the possibility of adding another member to their relationship. No one had needed to voice who he meant, they all knew and, as it turned out, approved enough to agree to at least give things a try.

It’d, admittedly, been a little rocky trying to adapt to having another person enter their already existing relationship dynamic at first. He and Ryan had clashed a few times over dumb stuff as they’d tried to puzzle each other out, Jack and Geoff having the advantage in this respect since they’d had the chance to get to know both of them before this had all started out… But after a while, and a few serious ‘talks’ between Ryan and Gavin as they tried to troubleshoot the things that were holding them back (where they’d essentially realized the source of the issue was they’d both believed the other hated them and okay maybe they’d both just been bloody idiots about this because they could’ve resolved this tension weeks ago if they’d just talked about it sooner), they’d finally managed to make it work and, in time, their relationship had grown to the point where he couldn’t imagine it without Ryan any more than he could without Jack or Geoff.

And when Gavin had found himself soothing away an oncoming migraine on one of the nights that Ryan had chosen to stay over, smiling even through the pain as he watched his boyfriend’s features smooth out into something more relaxed and serene in his sleep, he knew he had it just as bad for this man as he did for the other two he was dating... And the halfway to in love thing he’d been feeling before for his boys was gradually creeping its way a lot closer to being whole.

\----

Until he’d met Michael Jones, he’d been pretty sure that he’d never end up looking at anyone that wasn’t one of his boys in a romantic context again… but then again, when he’d thought that, he hadn’t met Michael Jones or even heard much of his work other than the one video Geoff had shown them all as they’d prepared to welcome the newest Achievement Hunter to Roosterteeth.

So it’d been a bit of a shock to Gavin’s system to say the least when he’d looked up from the project he was working one day only to find himself face to face with a _very_ attractive redhead. He’d been introduced to him by Geoff as Michael and he certainly hadn’t missed the look the older man had shot him, before he’d wandered over to boot up the monitor on the redhead’s desk. A look that’d clearly said that Geoff was on the same page as him as far as Michael being seriously _bloody hot_ was concerned.

He’d forced himself to keep it professional though, or at least, as professional as Gavin Free ever could... so naturally, by the end of the day, the two of them had been making dick jokes and had come up with the ship name Mavin and Michael was offering to let Gavin join him for his ragequits and Gavin was calling him boi and… it was probably the quickest bond he’d struck up with anyone since when he’d first met Jack.

Michael hadn’t actually ended up joining their relationship for a while after that though, and not for a lack of offers on their part either… it was just that the redhead apparently had something going with this other guy he’d met on an online gaming forum that might have started to become something more and… well, honestly, he didn’t want to ‘fuck up what they had before it’d even started’. And they could and did respect that so, for a while at least, they’d backed off.

And then Geoff had ended up hiring Michael’s something that’d become something more, completely by chance, and suddenly a man named Ray Narvaez Jr had wandered into their lives… Hired mostly for his gamerscore and snarking abilities, he’d been an easy fit within the Achievement Hunter team and it’d given Gavin and the others a chance to see Michael and Ray be dumb and ridiculously cutesy at times and happy together… and so they’d all decided, at the very least, that the man who had the redhead’s heart deserved it and they’d let them be…

So imagine Gavin’s surprise when one night when they were out getting bevs, or cokes in Ray’s case since the Puerto Rican didn’t drink, and the younger man had suddenly turned to Gavin and asked him if he honestly thought that relationship offer they’d made Michael a while back was still on the cards… and whether or not he thought they’d object too much to adding one more person to that deal…

It’d been the quickest yes he’d ever said in his life, much to Ray’s obvious amusement as he’d flashed Gavin a wide and slightly flirty grin, and Gavin already knew he was bloody screwed when he’d felt something in his chest flutter, almost like the butterflies you’d hear described in those cliched romance novels one of Dan’s old girlfriends had made him read when they were younger. And then ended up reading it together, laughing at the seemingly unrealistic and endless barrage of cliches at the time but… perhaps there was a reason they were so overused. Because when he was with his boys it seemed like those ridiculously sappy words finally started to make sense...

Later on that night he’d broached the subject to his other boyfriends, all of them quickly and readily agreeing to Ray’s terms for the relationship and when they’d gotten into work the next day, it’d become quickly apparent that Ray had given the Michael the exact same talk given the way the redhead seemed to be eyeing them all, especially Gavin, with a far greater intensity than he’d been before… though nothing had actually been said on the matter until sometime around lunch where Michael had murmured a soft ‘fuck it’ and suddenly the redhead’s lips had been on his and in that moment everything had been bloody _perfect_.

And after that? Everything had just seemed to fall into place. Because, as it turned out, falling in love with these boys was as easy as breathing, and just as inevitable too since he’d been pretty obviously set on that path from the moment he’d first met each of them. And it was wonderful and ridiculously perfect and Gavin knew, with utter certainty, that he’d never been happier…

But therein lay the problem. Because being as in love with his boys as he was meant that his usual desire to protect or heal, that he’d always felt for those he cared about most like Dan or Griffon or his parents or Burnie, seemed to increase tenfold in their presence, to the point where he had to mentally, and sometimes even physically, reign himself in every time one of them got something as tiny as a papercut because he hated the idea of his boys being in any kind of pain, no matter how tiny and seemingly insignificant that pain was, and especially when Gavin knew he could do something about it.

\----

It’d started off with little things at first, his desire to protect his boys resulting in him settling himself down on the couch next to Michael or Ryan whenever they got their occasional migraines from pushing themselves too hard. He’d pull their heads into his lap, carding his fingers gently through their hair as he murmured soft, soothing words until the world had stopped spinning for them… and had honestly started spinning a little for Gavin, though he made a point of hiding it well.

After all, the last thing he wanted was for them to start growing concerned for him. Especially since that concern would probably make them pay closer attention to the correlation between his suffering and the source of their pain relief to the point where one of them would figure it out… Neither of his boyfriends were exactly idiots after all. And a part of him did figure that he probably should just come out and be honest with them at this point because he definitely trusted them enough to do so. In fact, he trusted his boys more than anyone… but he knew that they’d pull the plug on his healing them the moment they knew what he was doing, and especially if they realized that doing so was hurting him in the process… And Gavin was selfish and weak and didn’t want to have that ability to help his boys stripped away from him.

Thankfully though, none of them had seemed to catch on to anything just yet and so whenever Ryan or Michael would start looking pale and drawn, withdrawing from the others in search of a dark room to lie down, Gavin would follow and soothe them back to health again.

Then he’d started to do the same for Geoff’s hangovers since the man seemed to suffer from them almost as much and it wouldn’t exactly be fair to heal two of his boyfriends while still leaving Geoff to suffer in silence...

Of course the lack of a hangover due to Gavin’s subtly administered healing sessions (since he’d wait for the man to pass out before he did anything, not wanting him or any of the others to to catch on) had backfired on the Brit a little since now Geoff was drinking a little more vicariously given that it didn’t seem to be having any real negative impact on him the morning after… which in turn meant more healing and resulting headaches that could rival hangovers for Gavin.

He’d actually been forced to stop drinking himself, just to make sure he wouldn’t have to experience a double hangover whenever he healed Geoff’s. And so he’d begun to opt for drinks like Ray’s whenever they went out now and while his boyfriends had seemed a little confused by that at first, they’d adapted to it easily enough and before long most of them seemed to have forgotten he’d ever really drank in the first place.

He also found himself healing one off injuries like when Ray had managed to bruise himself up pretty bad after a failed parkour attempt in the Roosterteeth parking lot, Gavin holding his hand and murmuring things that had the younger man’s eyes rolling at him, until the angry red of the impact and the dark black bruising that’d begun to creep its way along Ray’s thighs began to fade away to nothing. And Ray had seemed more than a little confused by that, as rightly anyone would be really under the circumstances, but thankfully an impromptu make out session with the man had kept him from asking any questions that Gavin really wasn’t ready to answer yet.

Plus it’d been him that’d sat beside Jack’s sick bed when the man had come down with a pretty bad case of the flu, soothing hands and words helping the man recover even faster than Joel, who’d been the one to give it to his boyfriend in the first place and there’s been some light ribbing between them as Jack had teased him about superior immune systems and Gavin had just been glad to see Jack back on his feet and with that usual alert yet gentle sort of light dancing in the man’s eyes…

And so it’d been worth the fact that he’d ended up feeling too weak to go into work the next day, Jack choosing to stay off and nurse him back to health (out of a sense of guilt for making his boyfriend ill Gavin imagined… and he hadn’t had the heart to tell him just how technically responsible the man had actually been for that). The gent had made him soup, tucked him up in bed, cuddled with him on the sofa for most of the day and… well it’d honestly been nice to have someone take care of him for a change rather than the other way around. And the next day, Gavin had been healthy as ever and raring to go as the residual weakness from healing his boyfriend finally wore off.

But the little things, while often exhausting to heal, were mostly bearable… it’d only been when Geoff and Ray had wound up in a car crash that Gavin’s need to heal and protect his boyfriends begun to veer into more dangerous territory.

Apparently the bloody idiot who’d hit them had tried to bail on the situation before realizing his car was too totalled for him to make a successful getaway. He was now facing a fine and a possible court trial for attempted hit and run but… it wasn’t enough, but then nothing ever would be when one of his boyfriends was now in a coma and the other was badly, though thankfully not fatally, wounded.

He’d been forced to reign in his instincts to heal Ray, the presence of doctors who’d know exactly what the usual, natural healing rate of a human being was and would probably think Ray was the freak here if they saw him suddenly begin to heal together the fracture in his arm, the painful looking bruising up his side, the cuts that littered the man’s face from where his glasses had smashed upon impact. And honestly, it killed Gavin to have to hold back from helping his boyfriend like that but, at the same time, it gave him more energy to focus into healing Geoff and, as it turned out, he’d really needed it.

After all, bruises, headaches and the odd broken bone were childsplay in comparison to the scars the gent war, especially when combined with his internal bleeding that the doctors still hadn’t managed to spot yet, internal bleeding that might even be able to kill the man should Gavin not step in and bloody do something about it.

At the end of the day, his intervention had been inevitable.

\----

He’d eventually caved, going to visit Geoff at the hospital alone, and with the excuse that he wanted to have some privacy while he talked to the man. It’d been a coping method that Jack had already adopted to cope with their boyfriend being comatose and that Ray seemed to be seriously considering it himself for when he got a little better, and was finally allowed to leave his hospital bed, so none of them had bothered to question it, instead allowing Gavin his space as they decided to put their efforts into cheering up Ray instead; with chocolates, flowers and a whole bunch of other gaudy cliches as they tried to make the lad’s bed the most gift laden area in the whole damn hospital.

And so Gavin had been left alone with Geoff. He’d taken a seat at the man’s side, trying not to think about how pale the man looked, about how strange it was to see him this quiet, this still… as he, instead chose to focus on the task at hand, his moving to grip Geoff’s as he began to murmur little things about how much he and the boys were all missing him and that they loved him and needed him to wake up soon for them because the needed _him_ … And he forced himself to keep his tone level, steady even, even as emotion threatened to choke him at first, and even as a searing sort of pain began to wrack through his body in spades moments later. He continued to talk and to lightly squeeze Geoff’s hand, his other hand moving to grip the bed tightly, practically in a death grip, as he tried to find some release for the intense burning that now seemed to be coursing through his veins.

Then suddenly the pain seemed to feel a little… duller, muffled even, and Gavin had been confused about that until he’d suddenly realized that the world seemed duller too, faint, fading, blurring out at the edges…

The last thing he’d seen before his eyes had shuttered down completely was Geoff opening his.

\----

He’d slowly regained awareness in a series of blurs and dull aches as the hospital bed he was in and the pale green walls surrounding it slowly swam into focus. But he barely registered any of that at the time because the first thing he’d seen when he’d finally blinked himself into consciousness hours later was Geoff’s face, his expression nothing short of fuming, even as the faintest glimmer of relief that managed to dance across it briefly as Gavin shifted a little, wincing as the dulled ache surged up in tenfold to protest the movement.

And clearly that wince had been enough to shake Geoff out of whatever relief he was feeling because moments later he’d been at the Brit’s side, hands actually shaking a little, though whether from anger or some residual fear Gavin couldn’t really be sure, as he’d half screamed at the Brit, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell us about this?”

He hadn’t quite been able to resist the urge to play dumb for a few moments, hoping that putting off his answer for a little while just might allow him to come up with something convincing that wasn’t ‘I can heal people with my voice if I concentrate hard enough and, oh yeah if I do it enough, it’ll kill me’ since he seriously doubted that was going to go down too well with his boyfriend anytime soon,  “Tell you what?”

“Hmm I dunno Gavin, maybe that you’re a goddamn healer and never told me or any of us, maybe that you’ve been healing us all this time and its been slowly draining the fucking life out of you, maybe that you almost fucking _died_ just now trying to heal me and just… fucking christ Gav, I’m not worth that.”

“You bloody are Geoff you-”

“Well then I don’t fucking want to be. Do you even fucking understand what it’d do to me if you died for me?”

“I-”

“Because I’d literally go out of my fucking mind, we all would-”

“How do you even know about this?”

“Apparently the doc here’s seen cases like this before.” Gavin’s eyes widened a fraction at that, “Yeah he said its not common but… still more so than most people would think. A slight mutation in genetics that allows the people who inherit it to have these abilities…”

“You make me sound like one of the bloody x-men Geoff.”

“Yeah well we make all those dumb fucking jokes about you and Ray having superpowers, maybe we were a little more on the money with all that than we thought… though if Ray actually turns out to have x-ray vision I might actually go ahead and lose my mind anyway because this is just… its fucking insane.”

He knew Geoff hadn’t meant for those words to sound the way they did but… hearing them just seemed to stir up some of the old insecurities he’d harboured over what’d happen when he eventually told his boys about his powers. Insecurities about how they’d treat him differently once they knew, treat him like the freak that most of the world would probably have him believe he really was... and perhaps they’d even stop loving him because of it.

But something of his thoughts must’ve shown in his expression, or perhaps it was just that Geoff knew his far too well, because a moments later there was a hand gently clasping his and Geoff’s eyes had softened a little in their intensity, “I didn’t mean it like that Gav its just… a lot to take in when you’ve just woken up from a coma you know? And for the record, this fucking changes nothing about the way I feel for you dumbass… well except for maybe feeling a little more concerned since apparently you’re enough of an idiot to almost heal yourself to death… and isn’t that a huge fucking piece of irony right there.”

Gavin hesitated for a moment, the guilt he felt over making Geoff worry like this knawing at his gut a little as he’d murmured a soft, “...I’m sorry Geoff.”

“I know and I’m not really mad at you idiot, I’m just mad at me for not seeing something was up here sooner.”

“You couldn’t-”

“Have known? Gavin I’m your fucking boyfriend, its my job to know this stuff.” And something about the way Geoff said it suddenly reminded him of the fact that he still had four other boyfriends who may or may not know about his ‘gifts’... and what if the reason they weren’t here with Geoff right now was because the idea had freaked them out? Or because Gavin had hidden it from them all this time. So, it’d been in a tentative tone that he’d voiced his next question.

“So do the others…”

“No, not yet I mean… They know you’re in here, you were out for a good few hours so it was pretty hard for them not to notice that. And they’re actually waiting outside right now… the doctor wouldn’t let them in or tell them what was going on, since I was the only one listed as an emergency contact… and I won’t tell them if you really don’t want me to just… promise me something in return okay? Try to cut back on the healing thing a little. Let my dumb ass deal with the hangovers I get okay just… I don’t ever want to be in this goddamned hospital room again with some doctor telling me you might never wake up just… please.”

And something in Gavin’s chest had torn in bloody two at the way Geoff’s voice broke on that final plea and it was now he noticed the way the man’s eyes were a little red rimmed and the bags under them and how bloody vulnerable he looked right now and… well how could Gavin _not_ make that promise after that?

\----

It hadn’t been easy to cut back on healing his boys, especially considering how accident prone they always seemed to be, but Geoff was always watching him now to make sure he wasn’t overusing his abilities and he knew the man wouldn’t hesitate to intervene if necessary… besides, he didn’t want to worry the gent too much now that he knew. So he’d cut it down to just healing the occasional migraines that Ryan or Michael would get, forcing himself to pull back on almost everything else and, for a while, it seemed to be working. He was a lot less light headed a lot less often these days, since he wasn’t use his healing abilities as much, and Geoff definitely seemed more than a little relieved that he’d decided to listen to his advice after that incident at the hospital…

And they’d continued to keep it a secret from the rest of their boyfriends, though he could tell Geoff was a little reluctant on that front, he’d respected the Brit’s wishes and that was definitely something that the Brit had been more than a little grateful for at the time. And again, for a while, keeping his abilities a secret had worked...

But then Ray had gotten caught in a dark alleyway one night by some muggers and they’d had a knife and… all it’d taken Gavin was a glimpse of the man’s blood as he’d stumbled into their apartment before the Brit had been rushing to his boyfriend’s side, Geoff thankfully not seeming to notice since he was too preoccupied with calling Ray an ambulance at the time. And he’d taken Ray’s hand, the other moving to apply pressure to his wound as he’d sat with him and begged him and the others not to freak out about this…

And then he’d began to murmur fast, frenzied words that he put his very soul into, each one ringing with the gift he’d been given as he slowly talked away the blood loss and began to heal the wounds and he could feel his boyfriend’s shocked eyes on him as he continued but right now that really wasn’t bloody important. All that bloody mattered to him right now was… well, making Ray a little bit less bloody. And he could feel the familiar stabbing pains and the room whirring but he didn’t stop, even as his boyfriends’ shock turned to alarm and Geoff came back into the room and suddenly there was panic in his voice and he could faintly register someone screaming his name and a sticky sort of wetness tricking across his face but… it was barely there and, moments later, all of it was engulfed in unrelenting darkness.

\----

The first thing he’d registered after that was a bright, white light, so bright it almost _burned_ after the intensity of the darkness before and Gavin was left disorientated and blinking for a good few minutes before he’d really managed to get a grasp on the situation.

“Am I dead?”

A light chuckle from across the room as an unfamiliar face suddenly swam into his line of vision, “Not quite though you were pretty close for a while there.”

“Who are you?”

“Your doctor though I’d imagine you’d be less interested by that than you would be by a certain thing we happen to have in common. You see Gavin, we both happen to possess your gifts.”

“You’re a healer?”

“Yes and in more than just the medical sense. I’m actually one of the most powerful on record. You see, every healer alive descends from the one bloodline of the woman who first developed the mutation and, as it passes down from generation to generation, the gene gets diluted a little becomes more recessive. It was why I was able to pull you from the brink of death without dying myself, though only just.”

And suddenly Gavin finally seemed to register the way the man was leaning heavily on the side of his bed and how his face looked a little more peaky than was probably considered healthy. He didn’t comment on it though, knowing that the man would be well aware of all that right now given the residual pained sort of fuzziness that always followed healing the larger problems people had. “Why did you do that?”

“Because that’s what I do. Ever since I was younger and my mother did it for me, she explained that in this world there are many who share our gift, albeit in weaker forms, but that their desire to help people often results in their own death because they want to help too many, always want to help just one more until they basically-”

“Heal themselves to death?”

“Exactly… It’s all a little ironic really isn’t it?” And Gavin smiled a little at that, remembering Geoff’s words before about it, though he’d chosen to keep that thought to himself as he’d allowed the doctor to continue talking, “Anyway, I then figured well if there’s others out there who would die to heal those around them, and I have the power to heal them… then what the hell was stopping me? You’re actually the third of our kind I’ve saved now.”

“But what if those people heal again, won’t they-”

“Die anyway? Yes, instantly and probably without even managing to take the other’s pain since all of their healing ‘juices’ as it were are already gone.”

“Then-”

“Why help them?” Gavin nodded, “Because I’ve only ever tried to save people I believed could be… Those boys waiting for you out there, Geoff, Ryan, Jack, Michael, Ray… you love them right?” The Brit nodded without hesitation, “Then do yourself and all of them a favour, step away from these abilities you have and live for them.”

“It’s not that bloody easy though I mean… how can I not want to heal them when they’re in pain.”

“You’ll always want to, there’s no way out of that no matter what you do but here’s the truth I’ve witnessed a lot in my time at this hospital. You can protect those you love from pain a lot better by using another gift instead; the gift of your life. You said you loved them right? Well they obviously love you just as much and no cut or scrape or even a serious, life threatening injury or illness is going to compare to the pain of losing you. So either you can take my advice and use your gift to protect them from that, or you can continue using the one that’d honestly do more harm than good at this point… Just remember this. Most people in life aren’t fortunate enough to know a healer but… they still mostly turn out okay. Who’s to say you and your boys couldn’t too?”

After that there’d been a long beat of silence as Gavin had allowed the doctor’s words to sink in, the last vestiges of haziness finally clearing as the man moved to let go of the hand the Brit hadn’t even realized he’d still been holding until now. And he’d barely managed to voice an ‘I’ll think about it’ to the doctor, his voice still shaky and a little weak, but the man seemed to have understood what he was trying to say anyway given the slight smile that was now curling the man’s lips as he nodded and left to go fetch Gavin’s boyfriends into the room.

And for a long moment the Brit had just starred at the ceiling, idly wondering over the man’s words until the door to his room was suddenly wide open and Michael was in and at his bedside in seconds, calling him a ‘fucking dumbass’ as he pressed a firm kiss to his forehead before taking his hand in his, Ray following moments later and pressing a slightly softer kiss to Gavin’s cheek as Jack’s hand had found his other free one, gripping it a little tighter than he usually would as if he were trying to reassure himself that the Brit definitely was still here with them. Ryan had settled down somewhere near his legs after he’d brushed another soft kiss to his forehead, pretty close to the spot where Michael’s had been.

It’d been Geoff who’d entered last, levelling the Brit with a look that clearly read _I fucking told you so_ along with a whole bunch of other things that Gavin would rather not decipher given the way it made the guilt already twisting in his gut after his talk with the doctor before churn with an almost unbearable intensity. The first words to fall from his lips were a soft apology and a promise that he meant to keep this time, completely.

Because after seeing his boyfriends’ reactions to his almost-death, suddenly his decision really wasn’t hard to make.

\----

Four months down the line and Gavin Free hadn’t regretted his decision one bit. Sure, it was hard sometimes to reign his protective urges in when one of his boys would manage to hurt themselves, especially if there were nasty looking bruises or broken bones involved but… one look from whoever it was that’d been injured, a look that clearly screamed _don’t you fucking dare_ at the Brit and he’d back down, letting them heal naturally and doing little things to keep them distracted from whatever pain it was they were going through instead. Because even if he couldn’t heal them, it didn’t mean he had to be completely useless in making them feel better.

And it helped a little to have that distraction from any treacherous thoughts about pain relief and unhealed muscle tissue and the potential agony his boys might be in, as did the relieved, grateful smiles he’d always receive from his boyfriends when he didn’t intervene. Because they knew how hard it was on him not to help them, they’d seen for themselves before after all just how willing he was to put his own life on the line for their sake and so they’d do what they could to help him through it.

Ray would usually distract him with some kind of video game, trying to ‘train Gavin up’ for potential future Let’s Plays and rolling his eyes fondly as all of said ‘training’ was completely lost on the Brit.

Ryan would usually settle down with him to watch some cheesy rom-com (that, as it turned out, were the man’s guilty pleasure) and the pair of them would sit and watch and make fun of the corny lines and the poorly developed characters.

When it came to Michael, he’d usually distract the Brit by talking to him about stuff. Work, video games, their future together, any dumb questions Gavin could come up with… anything really. His tactic seemed to be to keep the Brit talking so he’d never have the silence to think about other things and, most of the time, it kind of worked.

With Jack, things were usually quieter as the man opted for comfort rather than distraction. They’d curl up somewhere together and Jack would take him into his arms and soothe him, even as Gavin tore himself up on the inside about not being able to help whoever it was that was hurting. But some of the tension in his shoulders would melt away in the man’s embrace and, some days, he honestly felt like Jack may well be the only thing that was keeping him bloody sane at this point.

And Geoff? Well he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Gavin try to heal any of them again anytime soon but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help patch them up. He kept them well stocked with plasters, bandages and pain meds so that when the urge to help his boys got too much, and none of the others attempts to distract or comfort him were enough to talk him down from that urge, he’d have a safer alternative to using his powers. So he could still help, still feel useful, without hurting himself and them through that.

Because yes, at the end of the day, Gavin Free had always been ‘gifted’. But, as it turned out, the greatest gift he’d ever received was the ability to protect and bring happiness to the men he loved, just by existing. It was a gift he planned to use now for the rest of his bloody life, and maybe the cuts and bruises that life seemed to litter them with were worth it in the end for the happy, relieved, smiles on his boyfriends’ faces when he didn’t heal them away. And the little scars they picked up along the way were worth avoiding the larger gaping emotional wounds that even somebody with Gavin’s ‘gifts’ could never have healed. Because emotional wounds cut far deeper than any physical injury ever could.


End file.
